Supreme Court on corruption in judiciary chapter in NCERT book “Won’t let anyone defame”

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New-Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday took suo motu cognisance of a new section on “corruption in the judiciary” in the new NCERT Class 8 Social Science textbook.

The CJI expressed “serious concern” and said he had taken cognizance of the matter and could take suo motu action.

“I will not allow anyone to defame the institution. The law will take its course,” said the CJI.

Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek M Singhvi mentioned the issue before the CJI-led bench, and wondered why children were being taught about corruption in the judiciary as if it didn’t exist elsewhere.

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CJI Surya Kant responded by stating that he was fully aware of the matter and that many judges were also disturbed by the book’s content. “Please wait for a few days. Bar and Bench are all perturbed. All high court judges are perturbed. I will take up the matter suo motu. I will not allow anybody to defame the institution. Law will take its course,” the CJI said. Justice Bagchi said that the book appears to be against the basic structure of the Constitution.

NCERT’s Social Science book’s chapter on “Judicial Corruption” stated corruption, a massive backlog of cases, and lack of an adequate number of judges are among the challenges faced by the judicial system. The new book states that judges are bound by a code of conduct that governs not only their behavior in court but also their behavior outside court.

The revised book, with a chapter titled ‘The Role of the Judiciary in Our Society’, is set to hit the market soon. The chapter explains that the Supreme Court is burdened with around 81,000 pending cases, citing reasons such as a shortage of judges, complex legal procedures and inadequate infrastructure. Its focus on how corruption affects judicial credibility has set the cat among the pigeons.

As per the revised text, the High Courts have over 6 million pending cases, while lower courts are grappling with more than 40 million cases.

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